Monday, November 08, 2004

McLaren: Don't get me started on this, or I'll lapse into rant. Let me just say that I'm very very afraid of what's happening in the church in America. I'm afraid we're falling into a warrior trance, where the church baptizes the state or seeks to reclaim a kind of Constantinian power in the American empire. We're not listening to our brothers and sisters across the globe who are shocked and disappointed in our uncritical support of our government. We say we trust in the Lord, but it seems to me that our trust is pretty enmeshed with "horses and chariots" as the Psalmist said. We're succumbing to the politics of fear. We think that because we're pious---because we pray and sing and use lots of highly religious language - that we're immune to this kind of seduction, but it's happened a thousand times in history, and I think we're no less vulnerable. In fact, our wealth and power should make us more vulnerable to these seductions. As I said ... don't get me started.

2 comments:

Interesting comment. I think he may be right. I'm not sure. I would like to have a clearer conscience after voting for Kerry myself. I don't like abortion or any of the other social issues he stands for, but in this election the war beats all for me. Such an utterly absurd foreign policy is not acceptable. All I can hope is that Bush, underneath all of his intransigent rhetoric, realizes the mistakes that were made and won't repeat. Anyway, as to the Christian "duty" in all of this -- I just don't know.

What really surprised me about the election is that Bush seems to have garnered the popular support of even the minority evangelical right. I didn't want to believe that evangelical minorities would be homophobic enough or so pro-life-single-issue enough as to overlook the violence and injustice of the Republican domestic and foreign policy of the last four years. Apparently, they are.

Then again, maybe the vote was more of an indictment against a Democratic party that's lost it's soul.